Synopses & Reviews
The debut collection from a vibrant, streetwise voice: Winner of the 2002 Members' Choice Award from the Asian American Writers Workshop.Patrick Rosal's poetry rings with the music of no-frills industrial towns of central New Jersey. Portraits of hip-hoppers and condemned men (whose misdeeds as boys forever shaped their futures) alternate with dynamic riffs on longingsexual and filialand on the poet's Filipino roots. Unpredictable and breathtaking as a sax solo, these poems are the indelible marks made by a world that has been simultaneously kept close and left behind.
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[An] astonishing first collection by a young poet of immense gifts. (Thomas Lux)
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[A] book from whose pages you'll emerge shaken, heartbroken, annealed, made new. (Junot Díaz)
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A groundbreaking, singularly vivacious and memorable work of poetic insight and energetic commentary. (Midwest Book Review)
About the Author
Patrick Rosal has published poems in Footwork, The NuyorAsian Anthology, The Beacon Best of 2001: Great Writing by Women and Men of All Colors and Cultures, and elsewhere. He teaches literature and writing at Bloomfield College in New Jersey.